x-men: days of fuggedaboutit.

I am writing about the film, “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” There are spoilers in this post.

Damn, I was looking forward to this movie. Ok, yes, I found the X-men trilogy to be somewhat disappointing for a variety of reasons. Still watchable, and even fairly good films, but still disappointing (especially since these were practically the only superhero films in which most of the characters did not wear their costumes!!). But I thought “X-Men: First Class” (set in the past, not present day or not too distant future or whatever like the rest of the films) was excellent and a lot of fun. And the first Wolverine movie was rather good (though the second, I thought, was not).

I read that the new movie was going to have mostly the cast from 1st Class, with the exception of Wolverine (who has lived since the time of the civil war, but is part of the present day cast mostly, and is sent back in time.. or rather.. his consciousness is sent back in time into the head of the slightly younger Wolverine..didja get all that? ). But, the cast from the present day X-men films, including those I like (Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Patrick Stewart as the old Charles Xavier, Ian McKellan as the old Magneto, Halle Berry as Storm) was in the film too.. great.

The story?

Well..

Marvel superhero films tend to have a little teaser segment after the credits role. In the second Wolverine film (the one mostly set in Japan, but actually mostly filmed in Australia.. I thought that version of Japan didn’t look quite right), we see Wolverine met at the airport by Magneto (the old version) and the old version of Prof. X. (Charles Xavier.. who had previously been disintegrated in X-Men 3). What the hell. M and X told W that they needed his help.

The new film starts out with the world practically obliterated. It was not practically obliterated in the second Wolverine film, not even at the end. Again.. what the hell.

Incredibly powerful (and I have to admit, cool) robots called Sentinels (which look nothing like the comic version) are in the process of turning the earth into a post-apocalyptic wasteland (gee, how did that happen so quick). The heroes decide to send back Wolverine’s consciousness back in time, into the mind of a slightly younger Wolverine, so he can warn the young versions of Magneto (played by Michael Fassbender) and Prof X (played by James McAvoy) that they need to stop a pivotal event from happening. Almost all of the rest of the film is set in 1973.

I’m not going into the plot any further.. I’m going to mention my complaints.

Wait, first, I’ll say that the part with the character Quicksilver in the Pentagon is just awesome!! A very brief part of the film, but it makes sitting through the rest of the movie almost worthwhile.

Also, at least Beast was in the film. Both the young and old versions, although the old version was only in the film for a moment.

And Jennifer Lawrence rocked. She’s awesome, in this film and all others I’ve seen her in. She played the young Mystique. The older Mystique is not in the film, but that’s alright. The older version lost her powers in X-3. That was not alright with me.

My complaints..

Ok.. how did the world get obliterated so quickly? It looked fine at the end of the second Wolverine film.

Why was a main villain played by a midget? Yes, Peter Dinklage is very famous right now, because of a fantasy TV show I won’t watch called “Game of Thrones.” I’m guessing that’s why he was cast. Maybe the villain in the comic version of this story was a midget. I don’t know. But Mr. Dinklage was NOT SCARY.

NO explanation of how Prof. X. was alive again. That really pissed me off.

I’m not a total comic book geek, so maybe the comic version of Kitty Pryde (played by Ellen Page in the film) did have the ability to send people’s consciousnesses back in time. But I read X-Men comics a lot back in the ’80’s, and I don’t remember this. In the comic, Kitty Pryde could walk through walls, knew martial arts, and hung out a lot with Wolverine.. she was sort of like his adopted daughter, I suppose. Also she was drawn to look very sexy. I like Ellen Page, but Ellen Page is not sexy. Not at all.

Characters.. X-men not in previous films .. are introduced in this film, which is kind of frustrating. I did not know who anyone them were. One of my favorite X-Men, Nightcrawler was only in X-2, not in any of the other films. I wish he’d been brought back. He didn’t die in the second film, just was omitted from X-3 and this one. The characters which had not been in other X-Men films were cool, and one of them was very attractive (Blink, played by an Asian actress with a rather unusual and comical name: Fan Bing Bing), but this was distracting.

The 1973 version of the Sentinels looked reaallly stupid.

Havok was only very briefly in the film, and Banshee wasn’t in it at all.

A BIG complaint.. the William Stryker character, who is responsible for Wolverine getting his adamantium skeleton and claws .. the Stryker part of the story did not match up AT ALL with the Stryker part of the first Wolverine film.

In the first Wolverine film, Stryker recruits Wolverine during the Vietnam War. In the new film, Stryker is younger, is in Vietnam, but is up to other nefarious doings. He eventually captures Wolverine in this film, doesn’t recruit him. This bothered me a LOT.

The ending.. the present day was radically changed because the incident in 1973 was prevented.

And back in the School for Gifted Youngsters.. also X-Men headquarters.. two characters who had been previously killed off, and who I’ve not liked, well.. they are alive in this different version of present day. Damn.

Now we are set up for the next X-men film.. which I might not even watch.. since it likely will not have in it anyone from the 1st Class cast from the past (I like James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence), and since Jean and Psyclops are back.